Sexual Rights

Unlike women in the U.S. and other western countries, women in much of the Middle East are deprived of many of the rights to control their own bodies and their sexual lives. Essentially, their bodies belong to their fathers, husbands, and even the governments of the states in which they live. These women face issues such as genital mutilation, controlled fertility and reproduction, and rape. Women are made to feel like their bodies, more specifically their sexual organs, are something to fear and should be treated with caution. The alternative is a life of shame and the disgrace of her family.

One very common practice in many middle eastern countries is female circumcision, the process of reomoving some or all of the external genitalia. Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian woman and author of The Hidden Face of Eve and organizer of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA), tells of her experience at the age of seven when this violent ritual was performed upon herself. She was sleeping soundly in her bed when they (she is still not sure exactly who) came and stole her out of her sleep and took her into the bathroom where they lay her naked body against the cold tiles. Her mouth and eyes were covered and she could feel rough hands on her inner thighs, pulling her legs as far apart as they could go. Then came a sharp razor that quickly sliced a major part of her external genitalia, here clitoris, away. She was still crying as they placed her back in her bed and went to get her sister.

Nawal El Saadawi , however, considers herself lucky when comparing herself to the women of Sudan. In Egypt, circumcision is a great deal more humane than that in Sudan. In Egypt just the clitoris is removed, but in Sudan the operation consists of the removal of all the external genital organs. The clitoris, the labia majora, and the labia minora are all reoved. Only the outer opening of the vagina remains, only however after having narrowing the opening with some stitches on the top and the bottom portions of the opening. This is known as infibulation. "The result is that on the marriage night it is necessary to widen this opening by slitting one or both ends with a sharp razor so that the male organ can be introduced"(Saadawi, P. 9).

Female genital mutilation is practiced to ensure that women will have no desire for sex and will subsequently have no sexual relations until the time is right and they have a husband. It is detrimental for a woman to lose her hymen prematurely. It is probably the most important part of the female body in many middle eastern countries. It means disgrace if she loses it. This is a means of controlling the women and their bodies to ensure that they are virgins because the loss of virginity before marriage results in the loss of honor for the entire family and a life of shame for the woman herself. This sense of shame associated with sex is detrimental to women because it teaches them to suppress feelings of desire and to make them feel that sex is not something that can also be pleasurable to women.

The importance of virginity and the shame attached with the lack of it account for many injustices to women in the Middle East. One major injustice is that rape is often committed, but the woman or young children, must remain silent about it because her father or husband will punish her because she has lost her virginity or had extra-marital sex and would be a disgrace to her family. Therefore the rapist escapes without punishment.

"The criminal is safe, protected by the law, whereas the victim who loses her virginity, the girl who loses her hymen--for whatever reason, even as a result of rape, or at any age, even that of early childhood-- is doomed to lose her honor for life. Her hymen is her honor and once lost, it can never be replaced"(Saadawi. P.19).

As a doctor, Saadawi saw many sad cases and heard many shocking stories. One of the most shocking that she recalls is the time that she heard about the man that was attracted to his brothers daughter and had sexual relations with her. When it became known, the two brothers conspired together and poisoned the young girl to avoid the shame that threatened the family honor. They simply were too ashamed to let anyone know that she had lost her virginity.

Cases like these reveal the total lack of value of women as equal to their male counterparts in many Islamic societies in the Middle East. Just as most rape cases are not reported, of the ones that are, the rapists often escape without any punishment. In many countries, proceedings against the accused rapist are dropped if he agrees to marry the victim. Saadawi, in 1973, conducted a study at the College of Medicine at Ein Shams University, Cairo, of 160 women to reveal exactly how common rape and sexual abuse is amongst educated and uneducated families. She found that in uneducated families sexual aggression by grown men against young girls was 45% and in educated families, 33.7% (Saadawi, P. 20). As one can see, far too many young girls and women are sexually assaulted, aside from the constant sexual oppression with which they live everyday. After years of being taught that sex is something forbidden and that female genitals are dirty and only for the use of reproduction, yet also having those rights stolen right out from under them, women have been made to feel that not only are their bodies unimportant but also themselves, they are not independent or worthy beings and they lose their personalities. Saadawi describes the effects that the subordination of women has on their lives and loss of personality: "A girl who has lost her personality, her capacity to think independently and to use her own mind, will do what others have told her and will become a toy in their hands and a victim of their decisions" (P.13).

These are some of the ways that women´s bodies are controlled by their families in the Middle East, but there is also the government that plays its part in controlling the sex organs of women. Many Islamic countries are in support of population growth and often these prohibit the use of contraceptives and or abortion. For example in 1979, a pronatalist policy was adopted by authorities in the Islamic Republic which banned abortion and the importation of contraceptives. In Iran both of these are also prohibited.

The woman´s problem lies in the fact that her body, or more precisely her womb, is the only receptacle within which human life can be reproduced. The state, in order to submit these means to theinterests of the economic system which happens to be in force at the time, has been obliged to extend its control and subjugation to that of women´s bodies. She has therefore lost the real ownership of her body, it having been taken over by the state which, in modern society, has inherited much of the authority and functions which at one time were those of the father in the primitive patriarchal system (Saadawi, P.63).

This is how the state controls women´s rights to have or not to have children according to her own needs and desires.

Being from a western country and having western views, seeing the regard that women are held in the Middle East is disturbing and problematic to the development of these women and their rights. Feminists worldwide see the unequal and often harmful treatment of women as a serious global problem that needs addressing to ensure that one day these women may enjoy the sexual rights that women in western parts of the world take for granted.

Glossary